raising inquiries as to the cause
of the quarrel, and drawing the public attention to his connection with
Mrs. Graham, which, whether for her sake or his own, he seemed so very
desirous to conceal.

Thus reasoning, I trotted away to the town, where I duly transacted my
business, and performed various little commissions for my mother and
Rose, with very laudable exactitude, considering the different
circumstances of the case. In returning home, I was troubled with sundry
misgivings about the unfortunate Lawrence. The question, What if I
should find him lying still on the damp earth, fairly dying of cold and
exhaustion--or already stark and chill? thrust itself most unpleasantly
upon my mind, and the appalling possibility pictured itself with painful
vividness to my imagination as I approached the spot where I had left
him. But no, thank heaven, both man and horse were gone, and nothing was
left to witness against me but two objects--unpleasant enough in
themselves to be sure, and presenting a very ugly, not to say murderous
appearance--in one place, the hat saturated with rain and coated with
mud, indented and broken above the brim by that villainous whip-handle;
in another, the crimson handkerchief, soaking in a deeply tinctured pool
of water--for much rain had fallen in the interim.

Bad news flies fast: it was hardly four o'clock when I got home, but my
mother gravely accosted me with--'Oh, Gilbert!--Such an accident! Rose
has been shopping in the village, and she's heard that Mr. Lawrence has
been thrown from his horse and brought home dying!'

This shocked me a trifle, as you may suppose; but I was comforted to hear
that he had frightfully fractured his skull and broken a leg; for,
assured of the falsehood of this, I trusted the rest of the story was
equally exaggerated; and when I heard my mother and sister so feelingly
deploring his condition, I had considerable difficulty in preventing
myself from telling them the real extent of the injuries, as far as I
knew them.

'You must go and see him to-morrow,' said my mother.

'Or to-day,' suggested Rose: 'there's plenty of time; and you can have
the pony, as your horse is tired. Won't you, Gilbert--as soon as you've
had something to eat?'

'No, no--how can we tell that it isn't all a false report? It's highly
im-'

'Oh, I'm sure it isn't; for the village is all alive about it; and I saw
two people that had seen others that had seen the man that found him.